System Restore will NOT save beyond 1 day

Good evening Staff and readers,
Starting September 1, 2005, I noticed that the System Restore points for the entire month of August had spontaneously disappeared. Strange I thought, but perhaps the maximum 12% (3120 MB) had been exceeded, as I had created 1-4 System Restore points during several single days as I worked with partitioning my system using Partition Magic 8.0.
Scheduled System Restore has been somewhat inconsistent, so I resorted to manual daily settings. This morning (09/03) I found that the September 1 manually created point for Thursday was now missing; but September 2 (yesterday) was still present.
So I created a manual restore point for Saturday 3, puzzled by the loss of Thurday (1st) restore point. This evening, having been gone all day, I opened my desktop and checked System Restore: lo and behold, but the point for September 2 (yesterday)was now deleted and my manual for September 3, which I labelled as "manual as usual," was also gone; but a new point had been entered for the 3rd by the automated Scheduled Task option which is currently set for 12:00pm daily.
Please give me some options for solving this problem.
I will turn off System Restore, reboot and turn the System Restore back on while I wait for your answer(s).
Sincerely,
Scott

 

It is too late to ask this if you already turned off system restore and restarted, but I was going to ask if you had any previous restore points from last month.

System Restore FAQ

So , if there were no changes since the previous restore point, the restore point contains no data and thus will be removed the next day .


You may also want to examine your event logs for any system restore-related errors that could help you identify a problem.


Understanding Restore Points

Thus, if there are no changes since the previous day, that restore point is replaced by the new one each day.

 

System Restore Not Saving

Scott:
It sounds like you have the same symptoms that my comp suffered reciently. I too could only save a restore point manually. I checked the Windows Help/Troubleshooting page and came away with "be sure that scheduled tasks is turned on" ...not much help.
After pondering this and searching this board for a while a thought came to me that Spybot S&D wasn't saving a point either. This seemed to begin after the update of, I think, 4 items about 2 or 3 weeks ago ( not the one this past week). I checked the settings in the advanced mode of Spybot and it was set to save.
I turned SR off, uninstalled Spybot, rebooted, turned SR back on and reinstalled spybot. After checking that Spybot was set to save a point I rebooted. Viola! All was good again.
Please don't think that I'm faulting Spybot for the problem I think it is probably the best program, free or commercial, to both take out the garbage and keep it out.
Now if I could just get that little arrow in the notification area...

 

Hello Scott,

Per Pete, your problem is most likely a corrupt restore point and disabling/re-enabling will most likely fix that and as Bungalow Bill mentioned, the Task Scheduler service has to be running in order for the auto RP's to be written.

Also per Pete, monitoring non-OS partitions is not a good a practice. Those "data" files should be backed up with standard backup methodologies. As an example - SR monitors executes (software setup programs for instance) and PDF files, SR will make them subject to either disappearance or re-appearance if they were deleted.



oshwyn5,

So , if there were no changes since the previous restore point, the restore point contains no data and thus will be removed the next day .
No - not how it works.

Thus, if there are no changes since the previous day, that restore point is replaced by the new one each day.
XP, or WinMe for that matter, do not remove RP's on a day to day basis EDIT: This line should read Does not replace RP's. RP's are removed - on a FIFO basis - either because they are greater than 90 days old or because the allocated room for the System Volume Information file (SR's file) is not large enough for added RP's.

One way to shrink this file w/o losing the latest RP's is to shrink the size of the SVI in the SR tab of System's properties by decreasing the percentage allocated to it, rebooting and increasing the percentage again.

Restore points do vary in size depending on the degree of changes, with Restores taking up the most room.

Having no OS changes is almost impossible and irrelevant, if only because of changes to Windows log files.

Regards - Charles

 

Notification Area Arrow Disfunction

Hi Pete,
The problem with the notification area is more of an anoyance than a problem but I will appreiciate the help none the less.
I am using MS XP-Home, have DSL and a NIC. The problem began about a year ago but I was able to use a common work around mentioned on this board. That is to change the first icon in the tray to "hide when inactive" under task bar properties. This was all good until I changed virus software. Doing that somehow placed the network icon first in the tray instead of the original safely remove hardware and volume icons. I like to know when the network is active and do not want to render the network tray icon useless.
I have downloaded the task bar repair tool from Kelley's Korner and it works only until the next cold boot when the load sequence differs from a reboot sequence. Then the process is started over.
I feel a little silly complaining about such a minor problem but I did pay for the operating system.
Thanks in advance or your help.

 

Bill

PS Tray Factory v1.9 is free to try and P C World says it should work.

 

BungalowBill--Perhaps some help here about that arrow
http://www.tweakxp.com/article36779.aspx
I think the arrow disappears when it thinks there is nothing to hide.

 

Notification Area Disfuntion

Welshjim,
Thanks for the info from TweakXP.com. This seems to have worked but I won't know for sure untill a cold boot. I'll shut down overnight and will know tomorrow. The last sentence in the process say's it all: "They will appear as they did before, until Windows looses them again ".

 

System Restore will NOT save beyond 1 day:INTERIM FU

A huge thank you to all responders who are too numerous to remember,
I seem to have struck a common "problem point" for many guests/staff members!
<System Restore provides users with the ability to restore the system to its state on a specific days. It does this by creating a restore point every 24 hours>
This is exactly the function I lost on September 1. I reviewed my wife's Dell 2400 (also 1.5 years since purchase) and she has RPs (restore points) dating back to JUNE; yes JUNE!

As of Monday the 5th I have:
1.turned off SR (system restore)/rebooted/turned on SR (0903)
2.removed SR from all available drives/partitions, except the OS drive (0903) and 3.I've removed SpyBot from the boot startup (0904)

My RPs from the 3rd and 4th are still available. The "flood waters" may be receding in Richland, WA also. More to follow in a few days.

Thanks again to all,
Scott

 

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the post back.

FYI, in settings > settings again > main settings, SpyBot has two options to create RP's - one when fixing spyware/usage tracks and another when fixing system internals. Un-checking disables them. This is in case your running a scheduled scan.

I don't know whether this is a SSD bug or not, but if anyone runs into the symptoms that you experienced with SR, it should be tried.

I have those unchecked. If I think that SSD has to fix something major, I would create a manual RP as well as relying on SSD's restore.

Regards - Charles

 

scottdietert--Maybe you find some help here
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;302796
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/getstarted/ballew_03may19.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/plan/faqsrwxp.mspx


P.S. I wrote the following recently on another forum, which, however, was in response to someone who could not create any Restore points. It may not apply to you since you can create one or two. But indulge me on the chance that something may help.

"Is System Restore turned on? Right click My Computer|Properties|System Restore tab. Uncheck the box "Turn off System Restore ", if it checked. Is the slider hard over to the left? If so, move it to the middle.
Or it could be that you do not have Task Scheduler service running.
To verify that Task Scheduler is running from Control Panel:
1.Click Start, click Control Panel,

2.Click Administrative Tools, click Computer Management, and then click Services and Applications.

3.Click Services, scroll to Task Scheduler service to ensure the Service is set to Automatic and the status is Started.

Or maybe you are not logged in as Adminstrator.

If none of those is the problem, you may have a corrupt System Restore point. Check that "Turn off System Restore" box. Reboot. Now go back and uncheck the box. You will have lost all your previous restore points (which do not seem to be working anyway), but now hopefully will start creating good new ones. "

 

Hi Jim,

Always good to have the basics repeated

BTW, the last two of your references don't work http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pr...n/faqsrwxp.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/...ew_03may19.mspx

It could be me, but that's not unheard of with MS tech pages - they move them "around ".

Regards - Charles

 

charlesvar--Thanks for telling me about the links. I have corrected them in the above post.

 

System Restore will NOT save beyond 1 day:FU #2

Thanks to Jim and Charles for your continuing communication,
Charles, neither SpyBot restore point is check-marked as "ON" on my PC.
Jim, I've double-checked and I'm registered as owner/adminstrator/password protected. And all the automated System Restore steps in the scroll bar row are turned ON at every point along the line.
Lord, what a responsibility; why doesn't MS quit ruling our lives and let us alone??

At noon the System Restore window popped up at the exact time I've programmed the Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Scheduled Tasks/System Restore to start. BUT NOTHING ELSE OCCURRED. I waited two minutes and then manually created an RP for Monday the 5th.

So, while to date, the RPs for September 3rd, 4th, and 5th remain in tact, automation still does yet respond.

Will follow-up in a few days, unless the saved RPs disappear again.
TTFN,
Scott

 

Hi Scott,

You can't set your clock by the RP cycle Give it longer than 24 hrs. The manual checkpoints reset that cycle.

The system depends on how much idle time there is in setting the point, the busier the system, the longer the interval.

At least the system now seems to hold the manual RP's.

Regards - Charles

 

System Restore will NOT save beyond 1 day: FU#3

Good evening Charles, Jim and others,
Best news since August is that after uninstalling BootMagic8 (BM8) from an unintended drive, System Restore (SR) automatically created a Restore Point (RP). Next I reinstalled BM8 in the correct drive partition and again SR created another RP with no prompting or manual interference.
Looks like I'm back in business; I appreciate your cautionary note about expecting instantaneous RPs; am afraid that frustration results in impatience.
Will examine some other aspects of SR, but it appears another problem is solved with the help of WindowsBBS.
Take care,
Scott

 

scottdietert--Thanks for keeping us posted. Hope the present situation continues to work properly!! Your post will help us all to treat BootMagic with some care.

 

Hi Scott,

Thought you might be interested in this. A poster asked whether SR can be scheduled http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?p=257623#post257623

Although you can't schedule SR directly, PeteC found a reference to a script on the Doug Knox site that seems to do that http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_desc/xp_sysrestorepoint.htm

Regards - Charles